(i.) The theory of a Penal Substitution is entitled to precedence, not only on historical grounds, but also because of the primd facie support « Inch it has in the biblical evidence. The salient points of the theory may be summarized as follows — (1) as a sinner the offerer was under the wrath of God, and his life was forfeited ; (2) by a gracious provision he was permitted to substitute an immaculate victim, to which his guilt was transferred, and which was put to death in his stead ; (3) the vica- rious death of the victim was accepted by God, who, on the gro\jnd of the satisfaction ofl'ered Him, received the worshipper to peace and fellowship. As to a fourth point — wherein the ground of the satisfaction iay — opinion has dillered within the school. The usual Protestant view has been that the ultimate ground of the sinner's acceptance was the sacrifice of Christ which the victims typified, and even that reflective minds might have risen at the OT stage to a realization of this real ground of forgiveness with which tlieir typical ritual brought them into touch. Others held that the sacrifices had /ler se a true expiatory cHicacy in relation to the sins of the offerers (see Outram, p. 248 ff. J Fairbairn, ii. p. 304).
The essential feature o( thia theory, then, U that the death oj the animal victim was of the nature of a vicarious punishment — i.e. ' some evil indicted on one party In order to expiate the ^11 of anotlier, in the sense of delivering the guilty from punishment, and procuring the forgiveness of sin' (Outram, ib.). The evidence on wiiicli chief reliance is placed is contained in the ritu;il of the D.ay of Atonement (see AZA/.EL). In this ceremony it is distinctly stated that tile high priest confesses the iniquities of the children of Israel over the scapegoat, that the goat carries their ini()uitie8 away into the desert, and that he who lets the goat go uicura deflfement (Lv lO^uif). In the case of the Sin-offering there it a similar contamination conveyed by the victim (v.^), and, although the transference of guilt is not e-vpressly mentioned, it is argued that this offering is clearly governed by the e^ime ideas. Further, it is contended that the acts common to tb« ritual of all of the bloody sacrifices are expressions of the Bubstitutionarv idea, (a) The immaculate quality of the victim fitted it to take the place of the guilty ; ((/) the imposition of hands had the significance of setting it apart as a substitute, or imputing to it the sinner's guilt, or both ; (c) the slaughter of the victim was the carrying out of the penal substitution ; (ci) the sprinkling of the blood on the altar attested to Uod that an animal had been slain as an atoning sacrifice ; (e) the con- sumption by fire had the significance, on the older view, of the consignmetit of the substitute to eternal fire, — on the newer, of bringing the transaction before the mind of God (Kurtz, pp. 123-149; Fairbairn, ii. p. 30'2ff. ; Cave, p. 123 ff.). In the judg- ment of most modem scholars, the theory in question is un- tenable, and for the following reasons : (at) the death of the victim cannot have been ncarious, since sacrifice waa not allowed for sins which merited death (Nu 153»), only for venial transgressions ; (3) a cereal offering might also atone (Lv 511-13), and in thia case there could be no idea of a penal substitution ; (y) the victim waa slain by the offerer, but on the theory in question should have been put to death by the priest as Ood'a representative ; (S) the assumption that the imposition of hands involved a transmission of guilt is inconsistent, not only with other references to thia practice, but W'ith the fact that the sacrificial flesh waa treated as most holy, and might be eaten by the priest ; (i) the central act of the sacrifice was, not the act of slaughtering, but the manipulation of the blood, which was viewed as the seat of the aninvd soul, or oa a life which was presented to tiod (Dillmann, AUIrst. Thcol. p. 408. On the Imposition of Hands, see Driver's note in PrUtthood and Sacrijice, p. 39).
Of the above arguments, at least (a), (7), and (J) are of undeniable weight ; but how much do they prove? Simply this, that the idea of penal sub- stitution is not one which has teen consistently transfused throughout the entire sacrificial system. The various kinds of animal saciihce, with their common element of ritual, are certainly not the creation of one man, or of one school, by whom they were shaped with a single eye to making them the vehicle of a particular sacrificial theory. The sacrificial system of P clearly embodies a laige inheritance of forms and usages which had been created by earlier modes of thought, and the legislators did not feel called upon to recast every rite in a spirit of doctrinaire consistency. But when this has been said the possibility still remains that the sacrificial forms of most recent growth, and the most likely therefore to reveal the ideas of the compilers, embody the idea of propitiation through penal substitution. In the case of the sacrifice on tlie Day of Atonement, as we have seen, there is a transference of guilt, and the con- clusion is drawn that the flesh becontes unclean ; in the case of the Sin-oll'ering as much is suggested ; and it is a reasonable view that the interpretation thus given was meant to supply a key to the less articulate language of the other bloody sacrifices. The locus classicus, Lv 17", is not suHitiently definite to serve as a ground for rejecting the view. Moreover, the presuppositions of such a sacrificial theory were already recognized in OT religion. That sin is universally jirevalent, that it provoke* the Divine anger, and that its due recompense is suU'ering and death, had long been axiomatic in the higher teaching, and had been imptcsscd upon the popular mind by numerous cxami les of public and private judgments. Further, the pro- phets had been wont to describe the judgiuents of God upon the nations as sacrifices, and it was a familiar enough idea that the consummated sacri- fice was one in which the vengeance of God waa fully wreaked upon a people in the carnage of a battlefield, or in the atrocities of the sacked city.